The Perot Museum in Dallas Gets a Mammoth Gift

Rendering of a Columbian mammoth (not as wooly as you may have predicted)

While excavating, a farmer in Ellis County hit the tusk of a mammoth buried on his land; further investigation by the pros have unearthed a nearly complete and intact female Columbian mammoth skeleton dating back 30,000 years or so. Her pristine condition makes her exceptional. The farmer, Wayne McEwan, is donating the find to the two-year-old Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

It took a group of paleontology professionals and amateur enthusiasts, overseen by Tom Vance of Navarro College, two months to unearth the Late Pleistocene beast (she was small for a mammoth; about the size of a modern elephant). For at least the next year, Vertebrate Paleontologist Dr. Ronald Tykoski of the Perot will study and assess the skeleton at an undisclosed location in Dallas. The great news here is that the animal wasn’t sent to the auction block only to disappear into a private collection never to be seen again. Kudos to Farmer McEwan for doing the right thing, and welcome to Dallas, Ms. Mammoth!

Christina Rees is Senior Texas Editor at Glasstire. In the past, she served as an editor at both The Met and D Magazine, as a full-time art and music critic at the Dallas Observer during its golden years, and covered art and music for the Village Voice and other publications. A former resident of New York City and London, Rees currently lives in Dallas, where she was the owner and director of Road Agent gallery. Rees was the curator of Fort Worth Contemporary Arts from 2009 to 2013, where her exhibitions included Death of a Propane Salesman: Anxiety and the Texas Artist; Liam Gillick: …and other short films; M: Let’s Build a Fort!; Michael Bise: Epilogues; Rufus Corporation: Yuri’s Office (with Noah Simblist); and Kevin Todora and Jeff Zilm: Gaffes and Informations. Her recent independent curatorial projects include Modern Ruin and Modern Ruin II: Quick and Dirty (both with Thomas Feulmer). She was a curator for the 2013 Texas Biennial.